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Daytona 500 wreck


keiser31

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NASCAR is just a business. Built to make make money for the France family and everyone else involved. I started losing interest right after "Days of Thunder" was released.

 It was good for business and I get that, but for me it meant that I couldn't go to Florida for a week in the winter and afford to stay in Daytona to watch stock car racing anymore.

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Even I have a Tee handle (lug wrench)

 

It is amazing all of the changes I've seen (remember TVs with channel 1), from sand and stock cars to superspeedways. Probably the high point was the Plymouth and Dodge winged warriors when cars were still very different. Then 20 years later we had the freight trains. Didn't the restrictor plates come in because places like Talledega were hitting over 200 mph ? Seems like I remember one (Smoky ?) that looked fine through the carb plates at tech but dissolved when hit by fuel. And then there was the 3/4 replica Chevelle & the car that drove off without a fuel tank...

 

Still think "Stand On It" to be the best novel of racing in the good old daze ever produced particularly since Bill Neely was there for everything (Goodyear rep) and I know quite a few of the incidents actually happened (and even had a finish on the roof). Read it & skip the movie.

 

ps "independent contractors".

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My Uncle started in TV as an on air personality in 1952 or so. To supplement his meagre salary he also "called" races at some of the local dirt tracks. One of his jobs was to determine which drivers were too drunk to drive.  A little drunk was OK but if they were really plastered he had to black flag them.  Made for some exciting racing.

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Restorer 32, we have a local guy that was a member of a NASCAR pit crew back in the '50s. The car was built in a local service station and he was the jackman. When it came down to pack for the race he said they took the 50 pound floor jack from the station. He said it took about 10 or 12 pumps to get the car high enough to change the tire. Can't imaging the NASCAR crews today using one of those today.

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5 hours ago, R W Burgess said:

Stopping by my Toyota Dealer today with this engine picture. Will tell them I want a Toyota powered with this one!!!

 

Be careful there Wayne or you may come home with a Toyota Tundra with the 5.7L V8 with the optional Supercharger if the dealer has one on the pre-owned lot.

That combination puts out 550hp and 550lb-ft of serious truck torque at the crank. Probably not as much as the engine in the video but enough to give some current Mustangs a good run for their money. 

 

Then again you might want to save your pennies until the next generation Tundra comes out. Will have to see if that new model is truly the "Game Changer" that some Toyota Dealers on the Toyota Manufacturing Council have said it is. Time will tell.

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living 20 miles from a nascar track, i can tell you it is a huge boost to local economy.. that being said, how about this : dump the xfinity series, and replace it with some kind of "retro series".all pre 1980 bodies with only restriction being a natrually aspiraed, carbed engine with a cubic inch limit only. no overhead cams, but all the safety components. there are far too many of today's driver who whine about other drivers tactics, lets see how they react to the "chrome horn".

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If this topic really interests you then read the book Rapid Response  by Dr. Steve Olvey.  It chronicles how the medical  procedures for race car drivers and the safety standards evolved.  It is fascinating to know how terrible the early days were and this wreck clearly shows the amazing advances in safety and  medical response.  Seeing Ryan walk out so healthy is not only fabulous but a testimonial to what has been done in the sport in recent times.  What a GREAT picture of him holding his daughters hands...

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22 minutes ago, Steve Moskowitz said:

  It is fascinating to know how terrible the early days were and this wreck clearly shows the amazing advances in safety and  medical response.  

 

For those of you who haven't seen it here's a 3 minute video of what they call the worst crash in NASCAR history from the 1960 Daytona 500.There were 68 cars that started the race and over half of them were involved in this wreck in which no drivers were seriously injured. That's amazing considering that most drivers were wearing jeans and t-shirts and only a helmet and seat belt for protection. NASCAR certainly has come a long way in the last 60 years....

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lebowski said:

 

For those of you who haven't seen it here's a 3 minute video of what they call the worst crash in NASCAR history from the 1960 Daytona 500.There were 68 cars that started the race and over half of them were involved in this wreck in which no drivers were seriously injured. That's amazing considering that most drivers were wearing jeans and t-shirts and only a helmet and seat belt for protection. NASCAR certainly has come a long way in the last 60 years....

 

 

 

 

If you notice the era of cars in that video other than the pace car ( 1960 Buick) that this race is not the 1960 Daytona 500. It's actually Friday night's subway Firecracker 250

The 1960 Daytona 500 in the YOUTUBE BELOW did have one spectacular crash when a 1960 T-Bird hit a portion of the damaged guardrail coming off the back stretch. This accident stopped the car on the track, however the T-birds engine was ripped out of the car and tumbled across to the infield and stopped 25-30 yards from the car.

At about 10:28 in the video this accident happens. Also at the very end of the race with just a few laps to win, Bobby Jahns in first place with his Pontiac catches a gust of wind and pressurizes the interior of the car and lifts the whole rear end off the ground several feet and the pressure blows out the back light ( rear windshield) , out of control at 150MPH Jahns goes into the infield grass does a huge loop and is back on the track and finishes 2nd.

See this spectacular race.; BTW these are the years of the fast Pontiac's. As the Daytona starts the first four qualifiers are 3, 1960, and one 59 Pontiac just speed away from the field. In those years Pontiac was the car to beat. You can tell Chrysler corp.has something to do with  this film. I love it-backstretch speeds of 168mph on bias ply tires! 152 mph average speeds for the leaders. BTW blowing at tire is not a mistake it's a tire failure.   

 1960 Daytona 500 - YouTube

Edited by Pfeil (see edit history)
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1 hour ago, Steve Moskowitz said:

If this topic really interests you then read the book Rapid Response  by Dr. Steve Olvey.  It chronicles how the medical  procedures for race car drivers and the safety standards evolved.  It is fascinating to know how terrible the early days were and this wreck clearly shows the amazing advances in safety and  medical response.  Seeing Ryan walk out so healthy is not only fabulous but a testimonial to what has been done in the sport in recent times.  What a GREAT picture of him holding his daughters hands...

What caught my attention on Monday was that the AMR crews consisted of Paramedics and a Doctor - right on scene at the crash sights.

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3 hours ago, mike6024 said:

He should retire. Dale Earnhardt's crash was very mild by comparison.

 

 

Go ahead. Go on and call me coward. Call me chikenshift if you want to. If I just walked out of the hospital with the little hands of my children in mine, I'd hang up my drivin' hat and boots. And I wouldn't care a bit what anyone else said or thought about it. Go. Call me coward.   -   C. Cadillac Carl 

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1 hour ago, Pfeil said:

How about the Lee Petty crash that essentially put him out of the drivers seat at Daytona in the 1961. Out of the big "D" and landing in the parking lot!

 1961 Lee Petty & Johnny Beauchamp flip @ Daytona - YouTube

 

Here you go....

 

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Roll cages harnesses and real bumpers. Interesting some pre-war cars in the back.

 

When I had a family, I quit road racing and turned to TSD rallys and autocrosses. Still managed to roll an E-type but the seat belt broke so I walked away.

 

Ryans car did exact what it was supposed to, roll up in a little ball and protect the driver. Note as lengthy as the event was, he didn't hit anything solid (did get punted but was already airborne). Was he still in the air when he crossed the finish line ?

 

ps when I flew my 63 split window it took 25 stitches to my forehead (Bell Magnum inflicted) but when I got back to the track it turned out none of my crew had ever driven a rig so had to drive it with crumpled vette on back from Gratten back to Flint. Times were different.

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27 minutes ago, C Carl said:

 

Go ahead. Go on and call me coward. Call me chikenshift if you want to. If I just walked out of the hospital with the little hands of my children in mine, I'd hang up my drivin' hat and boots. And I wouldn't care a bit what anyone else said or thought about it. Go. Call me coward.   -   C. Cadillac Carl 

 

He said several years ago that he was going to retire from driving when he turned 40 and he's 42 now so I wouldn't be surprised if he did retire. He's a multimillionaire who has an engineering degree from Purdue so he has a lot of options of what to do next....

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13 hours ago, padgett said:

Was he still in the air when he crossed the finish line ?

If I remember the video he was sliding on his roof across the finish line...it was stated he didn't hit anything solid, but that first hit to the wall was pretty rough....

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2 hours ago, padgett said:

TV. Same way it can take a minute for an 8 second 1/8 mile.

 

I wonder how that series of "Illegal" street racing on public streets is really done, do the towns involved get a pile of money? How do you hide a fleet of three axle trailers and crew cabs? 

 

Bob 

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Have seen what looked like some horrendous wrecks (some from in the driver's seat). Can go on for as long as you want as long as no immovable objects are involved. In fact most of the hard hits occurred when the driver tried to correct and shot into a wall. Nice thing about being airborne is that you are just along for the ride and wonder what is going to happen next.

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And now, he says he is being treated for a head injury. Says he is looking forward to getting back into competition on the track. Didn't he say he planned to quit at 40 ? Did he now that he's 42 ? Man, if that bang on the beak didn't knock a little sense into his head, I don't think the best therapist in the United States could straighten this family man out. A lot of you know what happens when you break a promise to yourself. What's he got to prove, and to whom. To his wife and little kids ? There was a great Killer of Bull, the highest paid athlete in the world of his time. Manolete. Study up on the intricate details of his last, his scheduled "despedida" (farewell), fight.   -    CC 

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